Tag: movie filming locations

The “Father of the Bride” Grocery Store

Due to my parents’ recent move and my dad’s recent hospital stay, I have sadly not had time to do much stalking as of late. While in Palm Springs this past weekend my mom happened to ask me if I had some locations stockpiled (or should I say “stalkpiled”? ) for times such as this. Well, as I explained to her, I have so many darn locations on my “To Blog” list that half the time I forget about them, which was the case with the spot I am writing about today – the grocery store from the 1991 movie Father of the Bride. I stalked the market way back in early May and had completely forgotten about it until yesterday morning when I was going through my Picasa web albums and spotted the pictures I took while there. So, don’t worry mom! The problem lies not in there being a lack of locations to write about, but in me being able to recall them all! Anyway, a couple of months ago I asked fellow stalker Chas, of the ItsFilmedThere website, to track down several locations from fave movie Father of the Bride, one of which was the grocery store where George Banks (aka Steve Martin) refused to buy “superfluous” hot dog buns. Fellow stalker Owen had actually tried to find this location last year and had somehow managed to get into contact with actor Britt Leach who played the role of the assistant grocery store manager in the scene. Britt, who has to be one of the nicest guys in the world, not only wrote back to Owen immediately, but subsequently wrote to me as well and did his best in helping us to find the place. He informed us that the store was located in the Burbank area, possibly near the IKEA on North San Fernando Boulevard. So with that information in hand, Owen and I tried to track the place down, but, for whatever reason, came up completely empty-handed.

Enter Chas, who somehow managed to get in touch with a member of the Father of the Bride production team, one who not only remembered the exact address of the store, but who also informed him that it had sadly changed hands in recent years. At the time of the filming, the market was owned by Vons, but the property was shuttered a couple of years back, whereupon it was purchased by Henry’s Farmers Markets and the interior was remodeled shortly thereafter. Such a shame! As you can see in these pictures of the former Vons location, though, the exterior, which was not featured in FOTB, still looks almost exactly the same today as it did before Henry’s took over.

The interior, however, is another story altogether. While it is a beautiful grocery store, the interior is, sadly, completely and totally unrecognizable from its appearance in Father of the Bride.

In FOTB, George Banks heads to a local market in order to cool off after having had a bit of a meltdown over his daughter’s impending wedding. While there, he has an even bigger meltdown over the fact that while hot dogs are sold in packages of eight, hot dog buns are sold in packages of twelve. So, he decides to take a stand by ripping open packages to remove the four offending buns. When a befuddled clerk tries to stop him, George says that the hot dog and hot dog bun corporations “are not ripping off this nitwit anymore, because I am not paying for one more thing I don’t need. George Banks is saying ‘no’!” LOL He winds up getting arrested and is sent to jail, where his wife Nina (aka Diane Keaton) has to bail him out.

And even though the store now looks completely different, I just had to find the hot dog bun aisle while I was there so that I could pose with a package of buns.

Father of the Bride hot dog scene–Henry’s Market in Burbank

You can watch the Father of the Bride grocery store scene by clicking above.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the ItsFilmedThere website, for finding this location! You can check out Chas’ Father of the Bride filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Henry’s Farmers Market, aka the Father of the Bride grocery store, is located at 1011 North San Fernando Boulevard in Burbank.

June 28, 2011
Barone’s Famous Italian Restaurant from “The Office”

One location that I have been on the lookout for for quite a few weeks now is the Italian restaurant where the Dunder Mifflin gang hosted the annual Dundies Awards ceremony in the Season 7 episode of fave show The Office titled “Michael’s Last Dundies”. I had an inkling that the eatery was most likely located somewhere in the Van Nuys area, near Chandler Valley Center Studios where the series is lensed, so one of my first lines of attack was to do a Google search for the terms “Italian restaurant”, “Van Nuys”, and “filming”. My query kicked back numerous results, most of which pointed to an eatery in Valley Glen named “Barone’s Famous Italian Restaurant” and when I looked at an exterior image of the place on fave website LA Time Machines, I saw that it indeed matched up perfectly to what had appeared on The Office. So I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to stalk the place and grab some lunch two Sundays ago.

Barone’s Famous Italian restaurant was originally founded way back in 1945 by brothers Tony, Frank, and Mike Arpaia, all of whom had just returned home after finishing a stint in the Air Force during World War II, and their sister, Josephine Barone. The siblings purchased a defunct eatery named Barto’s at the corner of Beverly Glen and Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks and, in order to to save a bit of money, simply dropped the “T” and added an “N” and an “E” to the former restaurant’s exterior signage, thus creating “Barone’s Famous Italian Restaurant”. The establishment became so popular that just four years later the family was forced to move it to a larger space located at 14151 Ventura Boulevard, where it remained until 2006, at which time it was moved to its current home on the corner of Oxnard Street and Mammoth Avenue in Valley Glen. It was that Valley Glen location that I set out to stalk two weekends ago.

Barone’s Famous Italian restaurant, which has served such luminaries as Huntz Hall, Leo Gorcey, Lucille Ball, John Wayne, and Jane Russell, is still family-owned and operated to this day, 66 years after its inception. The eatery has long been known for its rectangular-shaped pizzas, an idea which was born out of a need to fit more pies into the restaurant’s tiny oven, but because I am diabetic and have to stay away from carbs, the GC and I were unfortunately not able to sample any. I instead opted for the Chicken Marsala entree, while the GC sampled Barone’s “Famous Stuffed Mushrooms” and a Caesar salad, and, sadly, I have to say that none of it was especially tasty. I had such high hopes for the place, too! Being that we saw no less than thirty pies make their way out the door for delivery in the short time that we were dining there, though, I am guessing that it is the pizzas that have kept people coming back to this place time and time again for over six decades.

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In the “Michael’s Last Dundies” episode of The Office, Michael Scott (aka Steve Carell), Deangelo Vickers (aka Will Ferrell), Pam Beesly (aka Jenna Fischer), Jim Halpert (aka John Krasinksi) and the rest of the Dunder Mifflin Scranton Branch employees gather at the supposed Scranton, Pennsylvania-area Louis Volpe’s Italian Restaurant to celebrate the 2011 Dundie Awards. Chaos, of course, ensues and they all end up getting kicked out of the establishment by the restaurant’s manager after Deangelo screams out the word “vomit” numerous times during his acceptance speech.

Upon entering the restaurant, though, I was shocked to discover that it looked NOTHING at all like what had appeared on the show. From what I was able to discern after talking to the restaurant’s super-nice hostess, while the “Michael’s Last Dundies” episode did use the exterior of Barone’s for some filming, all of the interior scenes were filmed elsewhere – at a location that I am unfortunately still on the hunt for. UPDATE – fellow stalker Owen recently tracked down one of the series’ crew members, who informed him that the interior of Louis Volpe’s was in actuality just a set that was built at Chandler Valley Center Studios.

Some filming has taken place inside of the Barone’s space over the years, though. The eatery was the spot where Mark “Rat” Ratner (aka Brian Backer) took Stacey Hamilton (aka Jennifer Jason Leigh) out on a date, for which he forgot his wallet, in the 1982 movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High. At the time, the restaurant was a German establishment named Hoppe’s Old Heidelberg, which was originally founded in 1958.

Thankfully, as you can see in the above screen capture and photograph, even though the establishment has gone through several ownership changes throughout the years, very little of the interior has been altered since Fast Times at Ridgemont High was filmed almost three decades ago. So incredibly cool!

In 1995, Hoppe’s Old Heidelberg was sold to a new owner, Switzerland native and Chef-of-the-Year-awardee Ueli Huegli, who renamed the place Matterhorn Chef and gave the menu a Swiss flair. In 2005, the restaurant was featured in the Billy Bob Thornton movie Bad News Bears.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Barone’s Famous Italian Restaurant, which served as the exterior of Louie Volpe’s restaurant from the “Michael’s Last Dundies” episode of The Office, is located at 13726 Oxnard Street in Valley Glen. You can visit the restaurant’s official website here.

June 14, 2011
The Figueroa Hotel from “90210”

A couple of years ago, while perusing through an issue of AAA’s Westways Magazine, I spotted an article about Southern California’s nicest most reasonably –priced hotels and, because I was dating the Grim Cheaper at the time, I figured I’d best read through it. Of the ten properties featured in the column, the Moroccan-themed Figueroa Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles immediately caught my eye and I dragged the GC right on over there to grab a cocktail just a few nights later. The two of us pretty much fell in love with the place’s unique architecture and exotic décor on sight and have returned there a couple of times over the years to grab a drink or just hang out. So imagine my surprise when the Fig, as it is commonly referred to, popped up on fave show 90210 as the Cabo San Lucas resort where Liam Court (aka cutie Matt Lanter – sigh!), Annie Wilson (aka Shenae Grimes), and the rest of the West Beverly gang spent their Spring Break in the recently-aired Season 3 episode titled “The Enchanted Donkey”. Because I had not taken many pictures of the hotel during our past visits, I immediately added the place to my Re-Stalk list and dragged the GC right on back over there this past weekend.

The Figueroa Hotel, which was designed by Stanton, Reed, & Hibbard at a cost of $1.25 million, was originally built in 1925 by the YWCA as a hotel/residence for businesswomen and their families. Shortly following the Great Depression, the 12-story, 409-room structure was turned into a public hotel and it later served a brief stint as housing for troops during World War II. The property fell into disrepair in the years following, until the late 1990s when it was purchased by Uno Thimansson, who immediately set about renovating the place, giving it a Moroccan theme. And, let me tell you, he did an incredible job. Walking through the hotel’s front doors, one is quickly transported from the busy streets of Downtown L.A. into a Casablanca-esque oasis. Every time I am there, I half expect to see Sam tickling the ivories while Bogie puffs away on a cigarette somewhere nearby. True to Westways Magazine’s word, despite the hotel’s fabulous ambiance and location directly across the street from Staples Center and L.A. Live, it still boasts extremely reasonable room rates. And while the reviews on Trip Advisor and Yelp are quite mixed, in this stalker’s never-to-be-humble opinion, the Figueroa looks like an extremely cool place to vacation. Not to mention that the poolside bar is something of a celebrity hotspot, with everyone from Keanu Reeves to members of Depeche Mode dropping by for a cocktail throughout the years.

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The Figueroa Hotel was used quite extensively in “The Enchanted Donkey” episode of 90210 in which it masqueraded as the “Hotel Burro Encantado” (aka the Enchanted Donkey Resort) in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Areas of the hotel which appeared in the episode include the main entrance;

the poolside bar, where Teddy Montgomery (aka Trevor Donovan) met up for drinks with former schoolmate Tripp Wallison (aka Alan Ritchson);

and the pool area . . .

. . . behind which producers had an image of the Cabo San Lucas skyline superimposed. In reality, the Figueroa Hotel pool boasts views of several massive Downtown L.A. skyscrapers. I was literally cracking up taking the above photograph while envisioning the way the pool appeared on 90210.

And while I had assumed that one of the hotel’s real life hallways had been used in the episode, the GC and I ventured upstairs to take a look at one and, as you can see above, it does not at all match up to what appeared onscreen. It seems that producers built a fake hallway set for the filming.

I had also assumed that some of the Figueroa’s actual rooms had been used in the episode, as well, but as you can see on the hotel’s website, that does not seem to be the case.

The super-nice front desk clerk also informed us that the Figueroa’s lobby restaurant, the Fig Street Café, stood in for a supposed Cuba-area eatery in the Season 7 episode of fave show CSI: Miami titled “The Deluca Motel”.

The hotel was also featured in the Season 4 episode of Chuck titled “Church Versus the Seduction Impossible” as the Marrakesh, Morocco-area hotel where Chuck Bartowski (aka Zachary Levi), Colonel John Casey (aka Adam Baldwin), and Sarah Walker (aka Yvonne Strahovski) were sent to rescue Roan Montgomery (aka John Larroquette).

In the Season 2 episode of Make It or Break It titled “Worlds Apart”, the Fig stood in for the Rio de Janeiro-area hotel where Kaylie Cruz (aka Josie Loren) and the rest of her teammates stayed during the World Gymnastics Championships.

In the Season 2 episode of NCIS: Los Angeles titled “Harm’s Way”, the Figueroa stood in for the Blue Oasis Hotel in Sana’a, Yemen, where Sam Hanna (aka LL Cool J) and G. Callen (aka Chris O’Donnell) stayed while trying to capture the leader of a terrorist group.

One of the hotel’s real life rooms – one that the GC, randomly enough, just so happened to snap a photograph of – also appeared in the episode.

I find it highly ironic that NCIS: Los Angeles filmed at the Figueroa as I have always thought that the hotel’s lobby bears a striking resemblance to the NCIS headquarters on the series.

Some filming of the yet-to-be-released James Cameron flick Battleship, which stars Liam Neeson, Alexander Skarsgard, and Brooklyn Decker, also took place at the Figueroa Hotel this past February.

And on a Matt Lanter side-note – a couple of weeks ago the cutie actor tweeted that he was going to be featured on the cover of the June 2011 issue of Metro Magazine. Well, I took one look at that tweet and ran right over to Vroman’s Bookstore to purchase a copy. Sadly though, Allen, the man who runs the Vroman’s newsstand (and yes, I know his name because I shop there FAR too often) told me that not only did the store not carry Metro Magazine, but it was apparently not even available from their distributors. So I marched on home and started searching for the publication online, but came up completely empty-handed. I could not find it anywhere and I am a pretty good Googler! Over the past few weeks I have also visited several newsstands and bookstores in search of the mag, but no one, it seemed, had ever even heard of it. Flash forward to last night when the GC came home from work with the above pictured laminated photograph in his hands. My birthday is today and he has been gifting me with little presents every night this week. Last night’s present, as it so happens, was a copy of Matt Lanter’s issue of Metro Magazine. As it turns out, Metro is published in the Philippines and not only was the GC able to figure that out, but he somehow managed to track down a man in the Philippines via eBay whom he had go purchase a copy for him! It is currently being shipped to me and I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on it! When the man heard why the GC had gone to such trouble to purchase the magazine, he said that he had inspired him to be a better husband. How cute is that???? Best.present.ever! Thank you, GC!

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Figueroa Hotel, from “The Enchanted Donkey” episode of 90210, is located at 939 South Figueroa Street in Downtown Los Angeles. You can visit the Figueroa’s official website here.

June 10, 2011
Caliente Tropics Resort from “Alpha Dog”

Another location that I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk while visiting the Palm Springs area two weekends ago was the Caliente Tropics Resort which appeared in the ultra-disturbing 2006 movie Alpha Dog. I found this location thanks to fave stalking book Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors, which was written by stalking god Harry Medved (who, as it just so happens, will be signing books at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena on Sunday, June 19th at 2 p.m., but I digress). For those who have yet to see Alpha Dog – and I can’t really say that I would recommend doing so as it is extremely depressing – the movie very closely follows the true life story of the kidnapping and murder of 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz by drug dealer Jesse James Hollywood and his gang of friends. Pretty much the only differences between the actual story and its onscreen counterpart are the names of those involved and the setting. In real life, Nicholas was kidnapped from his hometown of West Hills and taken to Santa Barbara, where he was held hostage for three days, during which time he attended a pool party at the Lemon Tree Inn. In Alpha Dog, the Markowitz character, who was named Zack Mazursky, was kidnapped from Claremont and then taken to Palm Springs for the weekend, during which time he attended a pool party at the Caliente Tropics Resort. It was that resort that the GC and I set out to stalk two weekends ago.

The Caliente Tropics Resort was originally constructed in 1964 as part of motel mogul Ken Kimes’ tiki-themed motor-hotel chain and was known simply as The Tropics. (While Kimes built and owned over 60 successful motels in his lifetime, he is perhaps best known for being married to murderer/con-woman/Elizabeth-Taylor-impersonator Sante Kimes). In its early years, the Tropics was THE place to vacation in the Coachella Valley and such luminaries as Elvis Presley and most of the members of the Rat Pack were frequent guests. Nancy Sinatra even lived there for a time during her childhood. Sadly, the motel fell into disrepair sometime during the 80’s and remained that way until the year 2000, whereupon it was purchased by new owners who immediately embarked upon a $2.2 million restoration project to bring the property back to its original, Polynesian-themed grandeur.

The Caliente Tropic Resort boasts the third largest pool in the Coachella Valley. It holds a whopping 100,000 gallons of water and, amazingly enough, looks exactly the same today as it did when the place first opened in 1964. The pool also has the distinction of being the site of one of the very first Miss Hawaiian Tropic contests.

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In Alpha Dog, the Caliente Tropics Resort is stated to be in Palm Desert, but in actuality the hotel is located about eleven miles west of Palm Desert, right in the heart of Downtown Palm Springs. In the movie, Frankie Ballenbacher (aka Justin Timberlake) takes Zack Mazursky (aka Anton Yelchin) to a party at the Caliente at the behest of drug-dealer/kingpin Johnny Truelove (aka Emile Hirsch), who has kidnapped the teenager in order to hold him as a marker for a debt his brother owes. Several areas of the hotel appeared in the flick, including the exterior, which you can see above. And I really do have to apologize for the quality of my screen captures – as I mentioned earlier, Alpha Dog is a very dark movie and my screen captures definitely reflect that.

The pool area also appeared in the movie as the spot where Zack – ahem – “swam” with his new friends Julie Beckley (aka Amanda Seyfried) and Alma (aka Amber Heard).

I am fairly certain that one of the hotel’s real life rooms was also used in the filming, but I was, unfortunately, not able to verify that while I was stalking the place.

The Caliente Tropics Resort was also featured in the 1997 movie City of Industry as the hotel where Roy (aka Harvey Keitel) and Lee Egan (aka Timothy Hutton) stayed while in Palm Springs planning the heist of a local jewelry store.

While stalking the hotel, the GC spotted three cement blocks bearing sets of handprints, a la Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. One of the blocks was signed by someone named “Anna Nicole”, whom I logically assumed was reality star Anna Nicole Smith. I promptly went to the front desk to inquire about the blocks, but not only did the woman working in the office not know who the Anna Nicole in question was, but she had also been unaware up until that time that there were even signed cement blocks with handprints on the premises! Needless to say, she was not exactly a wealth of information. Anyway, while she was speaking with me, she told me she did not believe the handprints belonged to the reality star, saying with a crinkled nose, “I seriously doubt Anna Nicole Smith would have ever stayed here.” LOL

As it turns out, though, Miss Smith did in fact once stay at the Caliente Tropics Resort during the filming of the Season 2 episode of The Anna Nicole Show titled “Anna (Palm) Springs into Action”. In the episode, Anna ventures out to the Desert in order to judge the 2003 American Guy male beauty contest. And, ironically enough, the woman at the front desk was actually not too far off in her assessment of the situation, as Anna complained about her accommodations the entire time she was there, calling the hotel “cheapy” and “embarrassing”.

The Anna Nicole Show–Caliente Tropics Resort

You can watch a clip from the “Anna (Palm) Springs into Action” episode of The Anna Nicole Show, in which the Caliente Tropics Resort is shown, by clicking above.

Unfortunately I never was able to figure out who the other sets of handprints belonged to. The block on the left looks as if it says, “Sav-A-Pet”, “Petsmart”, “Herb M.”, and “Marcel”, but after Googling countless combinations of those particular words, I came up empty-handed. And I am at a complete loss as to what is spelled out on the block on the right. I believe the first word is “Harold”, but neither the GC nor I could figure it out while we were stalking the hotel. Ideas, anyone?

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Caliente Tropics Resort, from Alpha Dog, is located at 411 East Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs. You can visit the hotel’s official website here. The cement block featuring Anna Nicole Smith’s handprints can be found in the patch of grass located just south of the resort’s pool, in the area marked with a pink “X” in the above aerial view.

June 1, 2011
The “Ocean’s Eleven” House

One location that I dragged the Grim Cheaper out to stalk last weekend while vacationing in Palm Springs was the supposed-Las-Vegas, Nevada-area residence where Reuben Tishkoff (aka Elliot Gould) lived in the 2001 heist movie Ocean’s Eleven. I had absolutely fallen in love with the mid-century-modern-style residence while first watching the film just about a decade ago and was shocked to discover, thanks to a free Map of the Stars’ Vacation Homes that I once picked up at the Palm Springs Visitors’ Center, that it was located in the Coachella Valley. And while I had actually dragged the GC out to stalk the dwelling once before quite a few years back – long before I ever started my blog – because I had only taken one photograph of it, I decided the place was definitely worthy of a re-stalk.

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Reuben Tishkoff’s house popped up twice in Ocean’s Eleven. It first appeared in the scene in which Danny Ocean (aka George Clooney) and Rusty Ryan (aka cheater, cheater, pumpkin eater Brad Pitt) try to convince the millionaire hotelier to put up the money to fund their proposed casino heist.

It later showed up as the spot where Danny pitched his plan for robbing the Bellagio, the Mirage, and the MGM Grand casinos to his band of cohorts including Frank Catton (aka Bernie Mac), Livingston Dell (aka Eddie Jemison), Yen (aka Shaobo Qin), Saul Bloom (aka Carl Reiner), Linus Caldwell (aka Matt Damon), Basher Tarr (aka Don Cheadle, who, interestingly enough, had an uncredited role in the film), and brothers Virgil and Turk Malloy (aka Casey Affleck and Scott Caan, respectively). Quite a bit of the house was featured in the movie including the front gate and the front door areas (both are pictured above);

the backyard;

. . . and the living room.

And while not a lot of the property can actually be seen from the street, this is one location that I would still definitely recommend stalking as it is just so unique. According to IMBD’s Ocean’s Eleven trivia page, the abode was designed in 1959 by Archibald Quincy Jones, the same architect who gave us the Palm Springs Tennis Club, Campbell Hall Episcopal School in North Hollywood (Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen’s alma mater) and the once popular, but now-defunct restaurant Romanoff’s On the Rocks. According to the Ocean’s Eleven production notes, which I found online, director Steven Soderbergh and production designer Phil Messina wanted the residence of the “old school” Tishkoff character to be a “throwback to the 1950s and 60s”. Messina says, “We looked for sweeping, low line, mid-century homes in Las Vegas and discovered that that architecture doesn’t exist there anymore. I had a book on modern houses in Palm Springs and that’s where we ended up filming Tishkoff’s house.” IMDB also states that the homeowners were paid a whopping $200,000 for the property’s onscreen appearance! Yowza, now that’s what I call a paycheck! In real life, the one-story residence boasts 3 bedrooms, 6 baths, 6,307 square feet of living space and sits on a 1.2-acre corner plot of land located just about a mile away from the heart of Downtown Palm Springs.

As you can see in the above photographs, the house also boasts some amazing views of the San Jacinto Mountains.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Ocean’s Eleven house is located at 999 North Patencio Road in Palm Springs. Here is a Bing map link to that location.

May 23, 2011
The “She’s Out of Control” House

Last week I enlisted fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, to help me find locations from the 1989 teen comedy She’s Out of Control. Now I should mention here that while I absolutely LOVED LOVED LOVED She’s Out of Control growing up, according to the movie’s IMDB trivia page film critic Gene Siskel detested it so much that he actually considered quitting his job after viewing it! LOL In truth, the flick is one of my very favorite 80s movies of all time, so how Gene could hate it that much is absolutely beyond me!

I mean, how can you go wrong with a movie that features performances by both a very young Dustin Diamond (aka Screech from Saved by the Bell!) . . .

. . . AND Mr. Chandler Bing himself, Matthew Perry?!? Sheesh! I don’t even want to know what choice words Gene would have for that other favorite 80s movie of mine Girls Just Want To Have Fun!

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Anyway, Chas being the great guy that he is immediately added the DVD to his Netflix queue (even though it is unequivocally a chick flick) and it arrived in his mailbox just a few days later. He watched the movie shortly after receiving it and, amazingly enough, somehow managed to track down the house belonging to the Simpson Family – Doug (aka Tony Danza), Katie (aka Ami Dolenz), and Bonnie (aka Laura Mooney) – that very same night! The abode was, of course, the location that I was most interested in stalking, so I could not have been more excited when he gave me the news and I ran right out to stalk the place the very next morning. Yay!

I had fallen in love with the Simpson house the first time I watched She’s Out of Control over two decades ago and I am very happy to report that it is just as cute and charming in person as it appeared to be onscreen.

And while I had originally thought that the real life interior of the residence was used in the movie, that does not actually seem to be the case. I happened to find these interior photographs of the house online and, as you can see in the above screen captures as compared with this interior image as well as this one, the stairwell which appeared onscreen does not match that of the actual house.

The real life kitchen and living room areas also do not seem to match their onscreen counterparts.

While doing some internet research on the property yesterday morning, I was shocked to discover that the very same dwelling also popped up as the residence where Laurie Strode (aka Scout Taylor-Compton) babysat Tommy Doyle (aka Skyler Gisondo) in the 2007 Rob-Zombie-directed remake of the horror film Halloween.

Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Chas, from the It’sFilmedThere website, for finding this location! You can check out Chas’ detailed She’s Out of Control filming locations page here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Simpson house from She’s Out of Control is located at 1960 La France Avenue in South Pasadena. Here is a map link to that location.

May 20, 2011
The Cravens Estate from “Commander in Chief”

As I mentioned a few weeks back, because of my love for Matt Lanter, the Grim Cheaper and I recently purchased and sat down to watch the first – and only – season of the short-lived television series Commander in Chief, on which the cutie actor portrayed the role of First Son Horace Calloway. I absolutely fell in love with the show and immediately started creating a list of locations to stalk from it, the most important being Pasadena’s former Cravens Estate, now the American Red Cross’ San Gabriel Pomona Valley Headquarters, which was used several times to stand in for the White House on the series. And as soon as the GC and I finished watching the final episode, I dragged my dad right on out to stalk the place. I have actually written about the Cravens Estate once before, back in July of 2008 just a few months after I first started my blog, but it was a very brief post and did not include any photographs of the interior of the property. So, I figured the place was definitely worthy of a re-post.

The Cravens Estate was originally built in 1930 for Mr. John S. Cravens and his wife Mildred and was designed by San Francisco-area architect Lewis P. Hobart, who was also responsible for constructing the City by the Bay’s Grace Episcopal Cathedral and the Crocker Building on Market Street. After migrating to Pasadena in 1900, the Cravens first commissioned an English-style mansion to be built on a 16-acre plot of land on what was then known as “Millionaires’ Row”. Three decades later, after vacationing in France, the couple decided to tear down their existing abode and build a new one based upon the design of the the Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte, located just south of Paris. That new manse became known as the Cravens Estate and it cost a whopping $310,000 to construct, making it one of Pasadena’s most expensive homes at the time. After the Cravens, who had no children, passed away in the 1940s, the property went through a succession of owners until finally being donated to the American Red Cross in 1962, whereupon it became their San Gabriel Pomona Valley Headquarters. The mansion is both a Pasadena Cultural Landmark and a Landmark of Historical Significance. In 2010, it was chosen to be used as the Pasadena Showcase House of Design, whereupon numerous designers came in and completely restored the property, which had lost a bit of its luster over the years, back to its original grandeur.

When I originally dragged my dad out to stalk the estate, I was hoping that we might be allowed to take a quick peek at the interior of the property and snap a few pictures. Well, imagine my surprise when the SUPER-nice receptionist said that if we were interested we could schedule a full-blown tour of the building. If we were interested? IF WE WERE INTERESTED??? Um, heck yes, we were interested!!! So I immediately scheduled a tour and dragged my dad back out to the estate once again just a few days later. What we ended up being given, though, was not what I had expected at all. Our SUPER-nice tour guide was extremely excited over how much I already knew about the estate and my enthusiasm for its filming history, so she wound up taking us on a TWO-AND-A-HALF-HOUR excursion through the property during which she showed us its every nook and cranny, including the attic area, the servants’ quarters and the basement. I can honestly say that it was one of the best stalking experiences of my life! Even my dad enjoyed it! The estate, which boasts four levels, 50 rooms, and just under 20,000 square feet of living space, is an absolutely remarkable piece of property! Pictured above is the entryway, which features hand-painted murals depicting the grounds of the Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte.

Our tour included the Cravens Estate’s reception room;

dining room;

Mrs. Cravens’ former sitting room;

a sun room;

the media room;

one of the original bathrooms;

the upstairs balcony;

the bridal room;

Mrs. Cravens’ original closet;

and the back side of the estate.

The area of the home that I was most excited about seeing, though, was the kitchen, which stood in for the White House Residence’s kitchen on the first few episodes of Commander in Chief.

The Cravens Estate kitchen was actually remodeled in 2010 for the Pasadena Showcase House of Design, but thankfully, as you can see above, it still looks very much the same as it did on the series.

We also got to see one of the property’s upstairs rooms . . .

. . . which was featured on Commander in Chief as the office of First Gentleman Rod Calloway (aka Kyle Secor).

And we were shown the central stairwell and glass-plated dome area . . .

. . . which popped up in the series as a White House stairwell in the episode titled “The Price You Pay”.

I just about died when our tour guide said I could pose for a picture on that very same stairwell. LOVE IT!

The exterior of the Cravens Estate also appeared in “The Price You Pay” episode as a supposed Washington, D.C.-area restaurant where President Mackenzie Calloway (aka Geena Davis) and her husband, Rod, take Attorney General nominee Carl Brantley (aka Alan Arkin) and his wife, Sue (aka Elizabeth Dennehy), out for dinner.

The Cravens Estate was also used extensively as Dalton Academy during this past season of Glee – a show which has gotten so bad that I can hardly bear to watch it anymore. Anyway, it first showed up in the Season 2 episode titled “Never Been Kissed” in the scene in which Kurt Hummel (aka Chris Colfer) spies on a rival Glee club known as the Warblers. Kurt later transfers to Dalton and joins the Warblers, after which time the estate was featured regularly on the series. Areas of the estate which appeared on the show include the central staircase;

the entryway;

the reception room;

and the dining room.

The Cravens Estate was also featured weekly as the supposed Falls Church, Virginia-area JAG headquarters on the television series of the same name. According to the official Cravens Estate website, JAG producer Donald P. Bellisario used to regularly receive letters from fans stating that they had searched high and low for the property while on stalking expeditions in Falls Church, Virginia, not realizing that it was actually located right here in Pasadena.

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The Cravens Estate was also used extensively as the Silverberg & Blake law firm where Robert Clayton Dean (aka Will Smith) worked in the 1998 thriller Enemy of the State. Areas which appeared in the movie include the exterior;

the dining room;

the central stairway;

and the same upstairs room that was used as Rod Calloway’s office on Commander in Chief.

In the 2001 movie Swordfish, the estate was where Stanley Jobson’s (aka Hugh Jackman’s) daughter, Holly (aka Camryn Grimes), went to school.

The back of the estate stood in for the French Consulate where a limo was bombed towards the beginning of the 2007 flick Rush Hour 3.

The estate’s reception room also appeared in Rush Hour 3.

According to the book The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations, the above-pictured scene from the 2001 movie Traffic, in which Robert Wakefield (aka Michael Douglas) is briefed by the White House Chief of Staff (aka Albert Finney), was filmed in a room at the Cravens Estate, although because only a tight shot of it was shown, I am not able to verify this or make a guess as to the exact room where filming took place.

The estate was also where Chauncey Gardiner (aka Peter Sellers) and Eve Rand (aka Shirley MacLaine) attended a cocktail party in the 1979 movie Being There.

The estate also stood in for the University of Minnesota dorm where Brenda Walsh (aka Shannen Doherty) briefly lived in the Season 4 episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210 titled “So Long, Auf Wiedersehen” and “The Girl from New York”.

In the Season 5 episode of Desperate Housewives titled “Look Into Their Eyes and You See What They Know”, the estate stood in for Beecher Academy, where Edie Britt’s (aka Nicolette Sheridan’s) son Travers (aka Stephen Lunsford) attended school. After Edie’s death, the women of Wisteria Lane – Bree Hodge (aka Marcia Cross), Lynette Scavo (aka Felicity Huffman), Gabrielle Solis (aka Eva Longoria), Susan Mayer (aka Teri Hatcher), and Karen McCluskey (aka Kathryn Joosten) – travel to the school in order to bring Edie’s ashes to Travers.

The entryway of the Cravens Estate was transformed into a restaurant in the Season 3 episode of Mad Men titled “The Gypsy and the Hobo” for the scene in which Roger Sterling (aka John Slattery) takes Annabelle Mathis (aka Mary Page Keller, who, ironically enough, also had a recurring role on Commander in Chief) out for dinner.

Fellow stalker/Jennifer Love Hewitt-aficionado Owen also let me know that the estate appeared as Parkdale Academy in the Season 4 episode of Ghost Whisperer titled “Delusions of Grandview”.

Both the exterior . . .

. . . and the interior of the property were used quite extensively in the episode.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The American Red Cross’ San Gabriel Pomona Valley Headquarters, aka the Cravens Estate from Commander in Chief, is located at 430 Madeline Drive in Pasadena. Here is a map link to the location. You can visit the property’s official website here. If you would like a tour of the estate, please call to schedule an appointment first.

May 19, 2011
Double A Cafe from “Charmed”

Another Charmed location that fellow stalker Chas, from the ItsFilmedThere website, told me about prior to the Grim Cheaper’s and my recent stalking trip to the Heritage Valley two weekends ago was the service station/mini-mart where the Charmed Ones – sisters Prue (aka Shannen Doherty), Piper (aka Holly Marie Combs), and Phoebe Halliwell (aka Alyssa Milano) – stopped for gas in the Season 2 episode of the series titled “How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans”. That property is actually no longer a service station, but is, of all things, a full service restaurant named the Double A Café and it is located on the corner of Santa Clara Street and Central Avenue in the tiny city of Fillmore, just off of Highway 126. Chas found this location thanks to a very helpful Charmed crewmember he had managed to track down and, even though at the time I had yet to watch the “How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans” episode, because my girl Shannen Doherty had once been there, I just had to stalk the place.

In the episode, the Charmed Ones stop for gas at the Double A Café while on their way to visit their evil Aunt Gail (aka Anne Haney) in the fictional Northern-California town of Santa Costa. While Piper fills the car with gas, Phoebe asks a couple of older gentleman for directions to her aunt’s mansion. (Filming of the mansion scenes took place at the Newhall Mansion in Piru which I blogged about last week.)

Later on in the episode, the girls return to the gas station while chasing after Cryto, the Demon of Vanity [aka Cameron Bancroft, who also played Donna Martin’s (aka Tori Spelling’s) All-star-quarterback boyfriend Joe Bradley on Beverly Hills, 90210], whereupon they find that the older gentlemen Phoebe had previously asked for directions have since been transformed into young men.

At the time of the filming, the Double A Café was an actual service station/mini-mart named Gasoline Alley. I could not find much information about the history of the place online, but at some point the property was converted from a gas station into a restaurant, as odd as that may sound. Subsequently, in October of 2011, a professional chef and Fillmore native named Dustin Anderson opened up an upscale eatery in the space which he named the Double A Café. And, amazingly enough, even with the vast transformation, the property still looks very much the same today as it did back when Charmed was filmed!

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A few other parts of Fillmore were also featured in the “How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans” episode of Charmed. The establishing shot of the supposed-Santa-Costa-downtown-area which was shown just before the Halliwell sisters pulled into the service station was actually a view of Downtown Fillmore’s Central Avenue. The shot was taken from the intersection of Sespe and Central Avenues and the camera was facing south, looking towards Santa Clara Street.

The spot where the girls hid from Cryto, the Demon of Vanity was the alcove area of the historic Fillmore Town Theatre, which has sadly since closed.

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While scanning through the 2002 movie Enough to make screen captures for last week’s post on the Piru Creek Bridge, I spotted the Double A Café space standing in for the supposed-Northern-Michigan-area roadside diner where Slim Hiller (aka Jennifer Lopez) and her daughter, Gracie (aka Tessa Allen), stopped for a bite to eat while on the run from Slim’s ex-husband, Mitch (aka Bill Campbell).

And while not much of the interior of the café was shown in Enough, I immediately recognized Fillmore City Hall, which is located directly across the street from the restaurant, through the window where Slim and Gracie sat in the scene. As you can see in this photograph, the real life view from the window of the Double A Café perfectly matches the view that was shown in the movie.

Big THANK YOU to Chas, from the ItsFilmedThere website, for finding this location! You can check out Chas’ ultra-detailed Charmed filming locations page, which covers Seasons 1 through 6, here.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: Double A Café, from the “How to Make a Quilt Out of Americans” episode of Charmed, is located at 501 Santa Clara Street in Fillmore. You can visit the restaurant’s Facebook page here. The Fillmore Town Theatre, where the Charmed Ones hid in the episode, is located at 338 Central Avenue in Fillmore. And the shot of the downtown area that appeared at the beginning of the scene was taken at the intersection of Sespe and Central Avenues in Fillmore.

May 6, 2011
Ali’s Trailer Park from “Burlesque”

While the Grim Cheaper and I were stalking in Downtown Piru this past Saturday, the super-nice owner of Poncho’s Place, the restaurant from True Blood that I blogged about on Tuesday, clued me into the fact that the supposed rural, Iowa-area trailer park where Ali (aka Christina Aguilera) lived in the beginning of Burlesque was located just two blocks north of where we were then standing. And I really should mention here that while the owners of the Downtown Piru businesses that I spoke with were incredibly nice and informative, the citizens of the town were NOT. In fact, some of them were downright menacing. Not only were we given numerous dirty looks by passersby while walking around, but we were also FOLLOWED by (count ‘em!) FOUR different cars while there (NOT kidding), the drivers of which all wanting to know exactly what it was we were doing in their town. I felt extremely uncomfortable the entire time and, while I am admittedly a scaredy cat, the GC also got a bit nervous so my fears were definitely not unfounded. So, while I would highly recommend stalking Downtown Piru and the few restaurants and shops located there, I would advise anyone wanting to drive around the town to exercise caution. Anyway, once I found out about the trailer park, the GC and I immediately headed right on over there.

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In real life, the Burlesque trailer park is extremely small and is only made up of nine or so homes. And I am very happy to report that it looks EXACTLY the same in person as it did onscreen.

The park makes a very brief appearance in Burlesque in the opening “Something’s Got A Hold On Me” montage in which Ali is shown packing up her belongings before heading out to the local bus depot to buy a ticket to Los Angeles. In the scene the camera is facing west, the opposite direction from which we took our pictures.

According to the DVD commentary with Burlesque writer/director Steve Antin, the interior of Ali’s trailer was actually just a set that was built on a soundstage at Sony Studios in Culver City. I cannot believe that they actually built an entire set for a segment that literally lasted about ten seconds onscreen! Ah, Hollywood!

On a side note – I had the amazing good fortune of meeting the love of my life, Matt Lanter, yesterday and I am very happy to report that he could NOT have been nicer! I will write more about it in a later post, but suffice it to say that he and David Caruso are easily the nicest celebs that I have EVER encountered! As I told fellow stalker Owen, I am officially in love. Which explains why today’s post is so short – I was literally so excited I could NOT sit still long enough to write much! I promise to write more tomorrow, though.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Burlesque trailer park is located on Warring Canyon Road, a half a block north of where Warring Canyon Road meets Center Street, in Piru. The park is denoted with a pink arrow in the above aerial view. Please remember that the trailer park is a private community and do not trespass on the premises.

April 28, 2011
The Piru Creek Bridge from “Burlesque”

Another location that the Grim Cheaper and I visited this past weekend while doing some stalking in the Heritage Valley was the Union Pacific Railroad Piru Creek Bridge which stood in for the supposed Iowa-area bridge that Ali (aka Christina Aguilera) walked across during the opening scene of Burlesque. I once again found this locale thanks to Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, who added the bridge to his Burlesque filming locations page just a couple of weeks ago. In an odd twist, though, when we showed up to stalk the structure we discovered that there were, in fact, two very similar-looking bridges located directly next to each other and I was unsure of which one exactly had appeared in the flick. The GC ended up taking photographs of both of them, though, and I am so incredibly grateful that he did because, as it turns out, they have each appeared on the silver screen in various productions!

The two Piru Creek bridges that we stalked are pictured above via an aerial view. Because I, unfortunately, could not find much information about either of the structures online, for the purposes of clarity I will refer to the bridge denoted with the pink arrow above as the Burlesque Bridge and the bridge denoted with the blue arrow above as the Enough bridge (it had a very brief onscreen appearance in the 2002 flick Enough which starred Jennifer Lopez, but more on that later).

The Burlesque bridge was first built in 1902 and measures 320 feet in length. The steel, through-truss structure is a Ventura County historical landmark and formerly serviced the Union Pacific Railroad.

In the opening scene of Burlesque, Ali is shown very briefly walking across the bridge while on her way to the local bus depot to purchase a train ticket to Los Angeles. You can see some photographs of Christina Aguilera filming the scene on the Zimbio website here.

Sadly, the Burlesque bridge is largely inaccessible to the public, which was highly disappointing as I was hoping to walk across it just like Ali had done in the movie.

And while it has been reported that the Burlesque bridge was the site of the train crash in the 1994 rom-com I Love Trouble, as you can see in the above screen capture, that information is incorrect. The train crash scene was actually filmed on the Sespe Creek Bridge, which you can see a photograph of here, in the neighboring town of Fillmore.

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Just south of the Burlesque bridge, on the opposite side of Center Street, is the bridge which appeared in Enough. As you can see in the above photographs, despite a difference in color and despite being wide enough for cars to drive on, it is strikingly similar in appearance to the Burlesque bridge.

And while I could find no historical information whatsoever about the structure online, I am happy to report that it is much more accessible than the Burlesque bridge. While one cannot actually walk across it, it is easily viewable from Center Street.

In the 2002 thriller Enough, the high-speed car chase between Slim Hiller (aka Jennifer Lopez) and Robbie (aka Noah Wylie) ends at the bridge when Robbie crashes his SUV into a steel beam that has fallen across the span.

At the end of the scene, Slim is shown driving off of the bridge and west onto Center Street.



Thanks to fave stalking book Hollywood Escapes: The Moviegoer’s Guide to Exploring Southern California’s Great Outdoors, I learned that the Enough bridge was also featured as the plane crash site in 1992’s Hero. Considering how deathly afraid I am of flying, I CANNOT believe that I actually had to scan through the plane crash scene to make the above screen captures. Shudder!

The Enough bridge was also featured during the opening scene of the 1974 movie The California Kid.



Thanks to the Confederate General Lee Fan Club website, I learned that the Enough bridge was also featured in two episodes of The Dukes of Hazzard. It first appeared in the Season 1 episode of the show titled “Luke’s Love Story” during the Hazzard County Obstacle Derby scene.



It later appeared at the very end of the Season 1 episode titled “Route 7-11” as the spot located just over the Hazzard county line where Luke Duke (aka Tom Wopat) and Cooter (aka Ben Jones) dropped off their friend Dewey Stovall (aka Paul Brinegar).

Big THANK YOU to Gary, from the Seeing Stars website, for finding this location.

Until next time, Happy Stalking!

Stalk It: The Piru Creek Bridges, which are depicted in the above aerial view, are both located on Center Street in Piru, above Piru Creek, about 1,000 feet east of the Downtown area. The Burlesque bridge is located on the northern side of Center Street, while the Enough bridge is located on the southern side. And while the Enough bridge is easily visible from Center Street, you can catch the best glimpses of the Burlesque bridge from Piru Canyon Road about 1000 feet east of Orchard Street.

April 27, 2011